Silence again. Roger pondered the situation, and at last said— ‘I suppose, if you made a promise of that sort, you must keep it.’ ‘I must, I think. I’m only under the impression that I was an awful fool ever _to_ make it.’ ‘I don’t see why. It commits you to nothing.’ ‘Oh, nothing, of course,’ said Michael, quickly. ‘I’m sorry for her, that’s all. And I hate to see a woman in trouble.’ ‘She may have got over her trouble by the time you get there.’ ‘She’ll never get over it, if you mean that she may have begun not to care about her brother’s weaknesses, or vices—whichever you please to call them.’ ‘Does she expect you to help her in curing them?’ asked Roger, rather bitterly. ‘I don’t know what she wants,’ said Michael curtly. ‘I thought I’d tell you about it, that was all. It’s all right.’ With that he seemed to consider the subject at an end. Roger knew quite well that what Michael meant was, that he repented him bitterly of his incautious promise to set foot again within Thorsgarth, and that in speaking about it, he had had one lingering wish that Roger might say, ‘Don’t go. Say you can’t, or won’t.’ But Roger had not been able to say that, and if he had, Michael would not have been able to act upon it. The thing was settled. He was to go. All the following day he went about his business and his work, seemingly just as usual. But behind all his occupations he had constantly before his mind’s eye the scene of the previous evening—a sepia-tinted landscape, a picture all in neutral hues, behind whose grayness he could feel a warmth and a glow which thrilled him. He saw again the darkling sky and fields, heard the roaring of the swollen Balder, and then the measured clank of their horses’ hoofs through the streets and along the frosty roads. And when this recollection faded for a time, it was replaced by that of their parting—the tired voice, the earnest request, the promised, ‘I will not keep you long,’ the sweet burden held for one moment in his arms, and the door closed between them when she went in. ‘Pooh! What folly. I shall not give way to any such nonsense. Otho Askam—Otho is her brother. Magdalen—Gilbert—what part or lot have I with them? She has some crotchet in her head. I would not be unkind to her, but I will make no more promises. I shall give her to understand that.’ It was a powerful and an honest resolution, and came from the very depths of Michael’s convictions on the subject of his own relations with these persons who had once, years ago, played so important a part in his life.